


Captain on the Bridge

by alexandraerin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexandraerin/pseuds/alexandraerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the Avengers find themselves pursuing an old foe from the bridge of the the Enterprise-D, the ship's command crew comes to terms with the realities of a very different earth than the one they know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain on the Bridge

They'd left Dr. Banner in engineering to try to sort out the engine hiccup that had been ongoing since before their arrival. Tony'd had a few things to say about that choice, but the exotic nature of the energies they were dealing with had been the deciding factor.

Not only was Bruce more familiar with dangerous radiation, he was also far less likely to be hurt by it… or by anything… than Tony Stark, especially since his armor hadn't come along for the ride.

It, like everything else they'd been wearing, had been replaced with a form-fitting jump suit that only Natasha seemed to be really comfortable in.

The crew, as promised, had not seemed to notice anything amiss about the sudden presence of strangers among them. They'd addressed Bruce solely as "Lieutenant" when he'd addressed them directly, and had seemed to look right through him like they weren't really seeing him properly.

The bridge was open and spacious, constructed in the round. A massive view screen sat at the front, looking for all the world like a windshield. There were three chairs in the middle, some sort of computer station at the back, and two seats with control panels towards the front.

"Nat, see what you can make of those," Steve said, nodding to the rear wall computers. He needn't have said anything, though, as she was already in motion, barely sparing him a nod of acknowledgment as she put her training into action. A computer terminal was a computer terminal, whatever the century, and a seasoned spy was never out of her depths for long.

"She's not exactly the expert, is she?" Tony said to Steve in a not-quite-whisper which earned even less of a response from Natasha than Steve's directive had.

"I've learned not to underestimate her adaptability," Steve said."Anyway, your expertise may be needed elsewhere. If one of us can't fly this thing, we're going to have to ask someone to do it for us, and I'd rather we limit our contact with them."

"Good thinking," Tony said. "Something's seriously off about them."

"Not just that, Tony, but… this could be our future," Steve said. "We could be interacting with our own descendants. I'd like to avoid complications."

"Nah," Tony said. "This isn't our future, Cap."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because if our descendants were walking around somewhere out there," he said, "this technology in here would all be descended from mine. Stands to reason."

"And you can tell it's not just from a glance?"

"A glance can tell you a lot," Tony said. "Listen, if this was really three hundred plus years after I perfected the arc reactor, do you really think these people would be flying around using volatile crystals to regulate antimatter reactions so intense that they need to keep the whole thing behind a force field to avoid frying everyone with radiation?"

"...I didn't know that's what they were doing," Steve said.

"What? We all saw the same reactor, didn't we?" Tony said.

"Look, Stark… can you fly this crate, or can't you?" Steve asked.

"Let's pop the hood and see," Tony said, strolling around and down to what he took to be the helmsman's position. He eyed the navigation console critically. It looked like a lighted dashboard from the mid-90s... not exactly promising in terms of technological sophistication, but simple could be good if he had to learn on the fly. Anyway, it almost looked...

"Well, that's weird," he said, sliding into the chair and running a finger across the controls, which rippled in response.

"What?" Steve asked.

"It's low resolution monochrome, but it's the second or third most responsive touchscreen I've seen," he said. "Got some serious retro chic here. Less advanced than it should be, but looks more primitive than it is."

"Can you fly it? Yes, or no?"

"Please. You met my father."

"Who was a brilliant pilot, but I don't think that's genetic."

"No, but brains are."

"So that's a yes?"

"No," Tony said. He swiveled his seat around and gestured at the other seat. "This is a two-man rig... helm and main navigation functions are here, ops and secondary navigation are over there." He nodded at the other seat. "Makes no sense... from the looks of this baby, she's not exactly nimble, and there's not a lot to steer around in space anyway. Why not have everything in one place?" He flipped his way through a few subsystems thoughtfully. "Give me half an hour and I can have everything routed through here... nav, operations, optics, weapons..."

"This is a ship, not one of your suits of armor," Steve said. "You can't do it all yourself, and anyway, I want us to get underway without delay."

"In that case, I'm going to need a co-pilot."

"Fine," Steve said. "Tell me what I need to do."

"Stay out of my way. Who's trying to do it all himself now, Captain?" Tony said. He turned towards Thor. "Hey, Goldilocks... you ever fly anything that doesn't have a wrist strap before?"

"It has been some time, and never a vessel of this size, but, aye, in my youth I did learn to pilot all manner of craft," he said, then added, "My brother was better."

"Imagine my disappointment that he couldn't be here," Tony said. "As long as you can navigate in three dimensions, we're good."

"Only three?" Thor repeated, taking the other seat. "Child's play."

"Great," Steve said, settling down into the captain's chair a little self-consciously. He looked over his shoulder. "Nat, any luck figuring out that sens..."

"We're showing no ships in this sector, Captain," she said. "I've picked up an ion trail with a familiar gamma signature bearing two-two-seven mark seven-three."

"Hydra tech? Here?" Steve said. "When Schmidt was atomized In our universe, the tesseract stayed behind."

"I'm just telling you what the instruments say," Natasha said. "You can ask him how he did it when we catch him."

"Our new friend said we'd need a 'warp-capable' ship, where we were going," Clint said. "If these ships use some kind of space warp to go faster than light, Schmidt could be modifying his to try to make his own tesseract."

"What folly!" Thor said. "The realms have many space folds and dimensional bridges, but in all the galaxy there is only one tesseract. It is unique in the universe, in all universes."

"It wouldn't be the first time Schmidt tried the impossible," Steve did. "And he has a history of figuring out how to do it, and causing a lot of pain and misery along the way."

"It would go a long way towards explaining how he managed to get a god-like alien so spooked that he had to call the cavalry," Clint said.

"Now, now, I really must protest that characterization," Q said, speaking even as he materialized in the seat to Steve's left. "I have simply delegated the material aspects of my task to material beings. For me to confront Schmidt directly would be an inefficient use of my powers."

"Would it be more efficient for us to fly a temperamental antimatter reactor across the vast reaches of space after him?" Tony asked.

"Alright, granted," Q said, waving his hand dismissively, "the humans of this era, for all their nearly admirable qualities, have much to learn about sustainable power..."

"I thought you said this was your ship," Steve said.

"It's more of a time-share arrangement, really..."

"What's the... 'United Federation of Planets'?" Natasha said.

"Oh, you've been accessing the library computers," Q said, an unaccountable quaver in his voice.

"It's on that plaque on the wall," Natasha said. "But since you mention it... computer, access library computer on U.S.S. Enterprise-D."

"Accessing..."

"No need," Tony said. "I've been reading the files since I sat down... voice mode Is great for hands-free, but the Mark-1 eyeball is still a lot faster. Anyway, if I wanted to listen to a computer drone on and on I could have stayed home and talked to JARVIS. This is the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, flagship of something called 'Star Fleet', which seems to be the pseudo-military wing of the United Federation of Planets, which basically seems to be earth... and earth's buddies, and by earth I mean basically American hegemony, so... yay us? Normal complement: one thousand men, women, and children... children? Hmm. Future Space America doesn't fuck around. Captain: Picard, Jean-Luc."

"Q," Steve said. "Where did you get this ship, and what did you do to the crew?"

* * *

 

"Mr. La Forge, report."

"Well, Captain, as far as we can determine, this is earth, in the 21st century."

"2013, to be precise," Data said.

"Impossible," Picard said. "Our world in 2013 should be reeling from the shock of global genetic warfare and teetering on the brink of nuclear annihilation."

"That's the thing, Captain," La Forge said. "I don't think we're on our world. This world had no eugenics wars, there have only been two recorded acts of nuclear warfare in all of human history, and the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s."

"Around the time the conflict should have been heating up," Riker said.

"Should?" Picard said. "I would think anything would be an improvement over what happened in our world."

"According to history, sir, Commander Riker speaks correctly," Data said. "And the broad geopolitical discrepancies are far from the only differences." He held up a sleek, white rectangular device. "Sir, this is a personal communication device common to this era. It is called an iPhone."

"Doesn't look like any phone I've ever seen," Riker said.

"Nor I," Picard said. "Still, one must expect some technological refinement from the eras we're most familiar with. I'll wager that a great many devices could be found on the streets of 21st century New York that we wouldn't find in the offices of Dixon Hill or one of your 'swinging' jazz clubs. Still, it's a bit bulky, isn't it?"

"Imagine pinning one of those to your chest," Riker said.

"The actual essential communication components would easily fit in one of our comm badges," Data said. He activated the device, turning the smooth, dark surface into a brightly lit screen. "The bulk of the device, as you can see, is an advanced form of PADD."

"Advanced for the time?" Riker asked.

"Advanced for any time," Data said.

"Sir, these devices have access to a global information network here the likes of which I've never seen," Geordi said. "They've mastered principles of distributed computing that I've never even heard of, outside of the Beta Magellan system… or the Borg. It's like… it's like a global LCARS system, but even that description doesn't really do it justice. The amount of information being stored and exchanged is… incredible. There's in excess of 1.7 exabytes of data exchanged, every day."

"Nearly two quintillion bytes?" Riker said.

"Good lord," Picard said. "Are they communicating with other planets?"

"No, sir," Geordi said. "This is strictly local."

"What do they even do that accounts for so much bandwidth?" Picard wondered.

"By volume, sir," Data replied, "it is approximately thirty-seven percent pornography, thirty-four percent other movies and videos, fifteen percent cats and cat-related media…"

"Thirty-seven percent pornography?" Picard repeated. "I cannot fathom… a global information network could put all the accumulated knowledge of history at the fingertips of anyone with one of those… those… I-devices… and these people give the lion's share of it over to pornographers? How do a people who haven't evolved past such a base urge managed to accomplish such a marvel?"

"Actually, sir, in point of fact, I believe it may be the other way around," Data said. "If pornography is the sector of the network that uses the most resources, it is reasonable to assume that it places the most demands upon the information infrastructure. If this has been the case historically, it may be the demand for pornography has driven the development of better and faster information technology. Indeed, sir, I have noticed in my survey of the capabilities of this and similar devices that there are a great many resources devoted to games and other entertainments that we would find frivolous, but which similarly push the boundaries of the available technology."

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Data, that these people have managed to accomplish what it's taken Star Fleet's computer scientists centuries to achieve because they wanted to play games and… enjoy personal time?"

"No, sir," Data said. "I am saying they have surpassed our computer scientists."

"It's not so far-fetched," Riker said. "Consider what's driven our research into the Holodeck."

"Indeed, Commander," Data said. "In fact, it was not until the development of the practical Holodeck that we have had anything approaching the sophistication, realism, and level of immersion that this earth's scientists have been producing. That we have now surpassed them in those areas is more a matter of medium than anything else. If the people of this planet had access to force fields, solid light emitters, and replicative transporters, it would be hard to predict what they might accomplish."

"One shudders to think," Picard said.

"Can we back up to the part where fifteen percent of the world's information resources are devoted to cats?" Riker said.

"And cat-related media," Data said. "Sir."

 

 


End file.
